Gajevy Week
by Yaodai
Summary: The other members of Team ShadowGear saw the romance coming even before Gajeel and Levy noticed the obvious attraction towards each other. One-shot series.
1. Blanket

"Blanket"

"Ouch!" Levy whined.

Jet had no other choice but to cringe, because that was like the seventh time in a row.

He had no heart to tell her that she sucked at this, because it was, well, Levy. It would be like kicking a puppy, or even worse, because no puppy was able to beat her version of puppy dog eyes.

So Jet just kept his mouth shut and tried to not pay too much attention to Levy, who continued to stab her fingers with a needle. Droy was unable to endure this torturous sigh and evacuated himself with an excuse of doing his job.

Well, to tell the truth it wasn't actually a lie - Droy probably was the sole member of the Fairy Tail Guild, safe for Mirajane, who happened to have more or less stable income and something that looked quite a bit like a normal job. As long as one could call a job cutting bars of soap in your basement. Jet preferred to stay as far away from Droy work-things as far as possible, partially because the process of producing soaps and toothpaste and other stuff usually stank as hell and partially because every time he was around, he ended up as a physical laborer. chopping stuff, grinding dried stuff into a powder, carrying barrels of fat... definitely not his thing.

"Ow!" Levy groaned, when the needle went through the material in a way she didn't expected it to. She probably stabbed herself again, considering how she jumped. The sudden movement caused the spool of thread to fell down from her lap onto the floor and roll away.

"Dammit!" Levy was forced to put her work on the table, so she could follow the threat. Somehow it managed to roll away all the way to the other table, where it got stuck.

"Why is Shrimp crawling on the floor?"

Jet jumped, because he wasn't expecting Gajeel to suddenly stand right next to him.

"Would you stop doing that?!"

"What?" Gajeel asked, slightly tilting his head to the left. A corner of his lips was slightly raised up, so he definitely was scaring the crap out of people on purpose.

"Creeping on people like that?" Jet groaned. "What's the big idea?"

"It's your fault."

Jet wanted to ask Gajeel if he was serious, but decided against it. The Iron Dragon Slayer was a terrible person and he was enjoying it greatly, so calling him on his shit wasn't worth a thing.

"So what she's doing?" Gajeel gestured towards Levy with his thumb.

The girl was still in the middle of her hunt, awkwardly trying to cover her backside with one hand, not wanting to flash everyone in the guild with her panties.

"Sewing."

"Sewing?" Gajeel raised eyebrows, slightly confused. "On the floor?"

"Well, accidents do happen..." Jet said carefully. He was trying to not be too hard on Levy, especially since she could clearly hear the conversation. The fact that she was not crawling from under that table was a pretty decent proof.

Gajeel glanced at the poor girl and then took interest in what she was working on. It was hard to miss the stuff, since almost a whole table was covered in it. It was also hard to not tell what it was. It would be pretty hard to confuse the thick, slightly worn-off material with anything else.

"Is this a blanket?"

"Yeah," Jet nodded. "There's some sentimental value to it."

"Not some!" Levy muttered, finally brave enough to leave her hiding spot. "We bought them when we first started working as a team!"

"You guys exchanged blankies?"

"You're making it sound ridiculous!" Levy pouted at Gajeel, puffing up her cheeks in that one of a kind, adorable manner.

"It's a blanket," Gajeel said with a shrug.

Then he picked the material up and spread it entire length, so he could see the damage.

"How the hell that even happen?" He asked. After he put his whole hand through the hole and wiggled his fingers, just to prove some mysterious point. Or something. Jet always had difficulty with understanding this guys intentions. It was like he was speaking a whole other language when it came to human interactions, at least sometimes.

Levy looked everywhere but not at the Dragon Slayer. "My bookcase fell."

Gajeel stood there, with a slightly confused expression on his face, clearly waiting for the girl to continue.

And she did.

"The corner of the blanket was probably stuck behind my bed. When the bookcase fell it somehow caught the other end of it and then the force of gravity and the weight did the rest of the job..."

Gajeel snorted quietly, then returned to examining the blanket.

"You suck at it."

"No one asked for your opinion! Meanie!"

"I'm just stating the fact," he said with a shrug. "If you do it this way, then there would be a very visible mark on the tear. And it will be sticking out at weird angle."

"Like you would do better job!" Levy huffed angrily. Then took a second look at his face.

"Waaait. Wait, wait, wait!" Levy said with a loud intake. "You can sew?!"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Seriously?"

"...what's so strange about it?"

"Nevermind," Jet said before Levy decided to jump and explain everything about it and then everything connected to societal roles and turn the blanket emergency into a monster of a history lesson.

"Can you... help me?"

"I am," Gajeel said, pulling the threat - which was Levy's last two hours of work and literal pain - from the material.

Jet considered himself to be impressed. The guy managed to be nice and offensive at the same moment. He was also absolutely clueless about what he was doing, which made the whole situation even stranger. The guy definitely lived in his own version of reality.

"That's not helping!" Levy protested, grabbing the side of the blanket and trying to pull it away from the man. "That's breaking!"

"If you're going to hang onto this thing like that then there definitely would be some breaking," Gajeel snickered at her.

Levy grunted something under her breath, but after some time, she let go o the blanket.

"Can you save it?"

"It's going to take some work," he said with a shrug. "You fine with some pattern or other shit on it? It would mask the hole."

"Everything is fine!" she said quickly, brightening with that sunshine smile of her.

"Okay." he said.

And that was it. Levy was slightly confused, while Gajeel was just folded the blanket in a rather messy way. It was awkward to even look at those two and Jet had a real fight to not to groan painfully.

Dealing with the fact that she wasn't feeling the same thing for him was one thing. Seeing her falling for that big ass was other. But those two idiots not doing anything about that...

"Where did you learn to sew anyway?" he asked, hoping it would be enough to kick-start some conversation. Anything to murder that awkward silence.

"Dunno," he said with a shrug. "I just picked it up. Socks don't repair themselves."

"Oh," Levy said and it perfectly voiced Jet's opinion on the explanation too.

Gajeel was rarely talking about his past and if he did it was always in as few words as it was humanly possible. Making out an image out of those tiny puzzles was more guessing than anything else and it still lacked many, many pieces, even after the Iron Dragon Slayer officially joined their team and they hanged out a lot. Sort of. Usually on a missions. Or when they invited themselves over to his place. Well, to tell the truth he wasn't talking much about anything. Dumb jokes usually covered his daily amount of words available, or at least he was trying to make it looks like it very, very hard.

xxx

A few blanketless days passed. Jet took a few easy jobs - just delivering stuff super-fast, a piece of cake for someone like him - so he couldn't see the sewing. It was kind of a shame, because he was very curious how it could look like. Was Gajeel sewing like a normal person would? Or was he like a human-sewing machine, using his magic to do the trick? That would be sort of awesome.

Droy was finally done with this bath of soap and other stuff, though he still smelled a bit like herbs and cleaning stuff. Not strongly, though, so the Dragon Slayers allowed him to hang out in the close proximity, so it wasn't anything too terrible.

Levy was also done with her latest job - something or another about drafting forms and documents for newly found merchant guild - and with tidying her room after the bookcase accident.

Jet had no idea what Gajeel was up to, but he also had enough time to meet the rest of the team over dinner. He also had the blanket ready, tightly rolled up and resting on the sofa.

Levy had enough of self control to wait for Gajeel to give her a signal that it was okay. Then she dashed towards the sofa and grabbed the material, unfolding it in one, swift movement.

Then she gasped and froze in place, just staring at the material.

Gajeel coughed, but she hadn't reacted.

"If you don't like it," he said, looking to the side, acting as if he wasn't all tense. "You can just say it."

She whirled around on her heels, still holding the edges of the blanket tightly in her hands. The material moved with her, wrapping itself around her legs up and creating something that looked almost like a human-burrito.

"Are you joking?!" Levy's voice was very high-pitched and loud and she was looking at Gajeel as if he suddenly went crazy. "This is amazing!"

It was, Jet had to admit, and anyone would definitely be diagnosed as crazy if tried to argue with the statement.

Whenever the huge hole was, it was impossible to tell. Instead, there was a giant Guild Mark, proudly shining on the blanket surface, while the edges were filled with small, well-detailed gears.

She probably wanted to get close and personal and continue her rant while stabbing the man under the ribs or something like that, but obviously forgetting about the human-burrito thing. The result was easy to predict - she fell face-first and didn't land on the floor only because Gajeel was in the way.

"Ow!" he protested. "You trying to push the wind out of me, or something, Shrimp?"

"You think you're the hurting one?" she moaned into his chest. Or abs, considering where her head actually stopped. "You're the one who's rock hard!"

Droy snorted and Jet was close to follow. Only then Levy realized what she just said. With an embarrassed squeal, she jumped away, miraculously avoiding falling over.

Gajeel wasn't unaffected either, though he wasn't showing it as much as she did. Though there was no way to miss the fact that his ears and nose reddened slightly.

"And the innuendo flies," Droy summed it all up and raised his hand, clearly demanding a fist-bump. Jet gave it to him, which made the pair go even redder. He might not receive Levy's affection in the way he dreamed about for years, but this... this was good. They got two friends out of it, since whenever Gajeel was going Pantherlily was closely following. It was good and it would be nicer if the pair stopped being dorks already and admitted that a certain thing was going on between them.

"I like it," Levy said, pulling the blanket up, so she was now wrapped all over. "It's really cool. Even if it's not identical anymore-"

"Eh, what the hell," Gajeel scratched the back of his neck. "I can make it to be a team blanket thing again, if you want it so much."

"Really?!"

He just shrugged.

"Thank you! Thank you, thank you!"

"Uh, sure, whatever," Gajeel muttered under his breath. The tone of his voice seemed to be bored, but there was a certain rule to how the Dragon Slayer was behaving. He was actually very pleased by the request and they all knew it even without Pantherlily translating him to normal human speech.

"Then we have to go shopping!" Levy said cheerfully.

"Shopping?" Gajeel blinked.

"Well, of course!" the girl nodded vigorously. "Somehow, we're two blankets short!"

This time the Iron Dragon Slayer was unable to hide behind that emotionless mask of his. His eyes widened and a dark blush followed, spreading all over his face and neck.

Life was cool, they were getting awesome blankets and the scary dragon-person happened to be pretty damn cute when showered with positive reactions.


	2. I Love You

**"I Love You"**

"Can't we just ask her what she wants?"

"Oh quit it!" Droy grunted at her. "This is Levy's birthday!"

And because of that it was a serious business. Droy somehow managed to live down the fact that Levy wasn't interested in him in a way he wished for, even if it was painful and difficult as heck. Then he had to live with the fact that the petite girl was interested in that gruff who was currently walking next to him. That was even more difficult. Doable, though.

Droy still cared deeply for Levy and still wanted to shower her with affection and hand over the world to her. Which was the thing that lead him to this shopping trip with Gajeel Redfox. Who was neither interested or awed by the perspective of buying things.

"Yea," Gajeel just shrugged. "I think she should have a say in what she wants to get."

"This is not what presents are about!" Droy protested. "The intention! The intention is what really counts!"

"Asking her what she thinks about it wouldn't?" Gajeel tilted his head.

"It would, it's like respecting her decisions and choices, but... but..." Droy threw his hands up with frustration. "This is the wrong situation!"

"...I don't see anything wrong with it."

"With a birthday present you're like... supposed to show that you care and that you were thinking about what you are giving. And stuff."

"Stuff."

"Yeah. Like," Droy carefully eyed Gajeel. "Your intentions towards that person. You can show these through your gift."

The hint was far, far from subtle, but it was hot, and the streets of Magnolia shopping district were all bathed in sun. Even the stone surface of sidewalks was warm enough to fry an egg on it. Or it seemed like it.

"Uh-huh. Can't I just get her a book?"

"Everybody jumps at this idea," Droy grunted. "So no, you can't. Besides, how can you be sure that you're not getting her a double? You planning on breaking in into her room, or something? Do you have even the slightest idea how many books she already have?"

"Do you?"

"Yes!"

Gajeel furrowed his brow. "...Did you broke into her room?"

"What?" Droy blinked. "No!"

"Then how do you know? You're a guy, you can't just walk into the Fairy Hills."

"Apparently pre-pubescent boys were allowed," Droy said with a shrug. Well, they were allowed, because back then Erza Scarlet was just another brat, so she wasn't able to hold everything in that iron grip of hers.

"Oh," Gajeel blinked. "That makes sense."

"So, what are you getting her? Maybe a flower?"

"Why flower?"

"She's a girl. Girls like flowers." Droy explained slowly.

"What she's gonna do with a flower? Unless it's edible."

Priorities. This guy had them right in the worst way possible. Or was just cracking a joke. Sometimes it was difficult to tell with that lack of facial expression going on. Sometimes Gajeel was doing it on purpose, because confusing people pleased him greatly. Or so Pantherlily said.

"...just get her a red rose?" Droy proposed. "These are pretty classic."

"Meh."

"Tulips then? They are elegant and stuff."

"We both know that I never ever stood next to elegant. It ran away from me. Pissed its pants on the way out."

Droy groaned. This was like the worst time to be self-conscious.

"Melantthus then? Or a Myrtle?"

"She don't have a garden."

"Acacia? You can plant it under her window..."

"I'm not dragging a goddamn tree through the whole town," Gajeel stated.

Droy sighed. Well, at least now he knew: only Natsu was crazy enough to actually do that sort of thing.

"Violets? They look cute on the windows and you can keep them in the apartments..."

"No."

"Why not?"

"They are ugly. And pointless."

"Oooh! So you actually are putting your head to it!" Droy clapped his hands together. Was it progress? Finally something was going on in that thick scull of Dragon Slayer, so they could do the actual shopping and then get the hell away from all that sun?

"Shut up," Gajeel grunted. "I just don't want to give some dumb dust collector."

Progress it was indeed. The Dragon Slayer was getting grumpy, which was a clear sign that he was starting to care.

"Maybe a necklace them? Those are pretty and popular and you can find then in all sorts of cute shapes. A heart, maybe?"

"That's dumb. And those don't even look like..."

"You know what? Don't even finish that sentence. If not a heart, then maybe a dolphin?"

"No."

"A dove?"

"I don't get what's up with the doves," Gajeel scratched the side of his head. "All they do is flying around and shitting on things."

"Sweet heavens, have mercy upon me! A swan then?"

"No birds. That's a rule."

"I'm starting to think you're just trying to piss me off now."

"Whatever."

He was.

"So... if not a jewelry, they maybe just make a dinner just for her? You know, fancy sea-food think. I know you have that in you."

"Dunno," Gajeel furrowed his eyebrows. "I mean, Magnolia is crossed by river and we're not that far from the shore, but I still would be careful about that shit. Food transport can be weird."

Droy wanted to cry. And scream and get drunk and toss Erza's cheesecake through the window. Or to do something as suicidal as denying terrifying Titania her sweets.

xxx

"...you're drinking," Jet pointed out, looking at his friend a little bit weirdly and slightly worried. "Not eating and drinking, just drinking."

Droy was indeed sitting by one of the tables in the Guild, currently occupied by emptying a jug of beer. There were already three empty ones spread on the wooden surface, like the man pushed them away after finishing his drink. Wet marks, still visible and leading towards the glasses were a proof that Droy was drinking quite fast too.

"Yep."

The answer was definitely too short and Droy's voice sounded somewhat like he was dead on the inside, so Jet started to worry. People who were not Cana were not supposed to drink Alberona style.

"Why?"

"I was trying to help Gajeel pick a present for Levy," this time Droy explained. He even put the jug of beer away, through that was because he needed to breathe and it was hard to do, while swallowing fluids.

"Okay," Jet said slowly. "How's that bad?"

"Because I was trying everything!" he whined. "Everything! I went through the flower language, then jumped into jewelry with animal symbolism and even tried to talk him into cooking the right sort of food!"

"...okay. Okay. Why is that so important?"

"I was trying to give Levy the ultimate present!"

Jet blinked. "Say what?"

Droy just rolled his eyes. "We both know that there is a think between them, but they won't admit it."

"Uh-huh," it was sometimes painful to watch, if Jet had to be sincere. They were just staring at each other – but only when the other one wasn't looking – and making all sorts of dumb excuses to be near each other, but they never ever made that one step needed for the whole thing to finally progress.

"And Gajeel is definitely not going to initiate anything, because he's well, Gajeel." Socially awkward Dragon Slayer definitely had trouble with admitting anything. Feeling were even worse.

"So I thought that if he gave her the right gift, then they would be set," Droy explained. "You know Levy, she smart, she would work the meaning out in like second and then she would be all jumpy and happy because he made the first move. And then she would probably jump in and kiss him, so she would be actually making the first move..."

Jet pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know what? Keep drinking."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Droy admitted with a sigh. "A rag dipped in chloroform and three meters of rope are starting to look like a good idea."

"In what world?"

"The one where I add a bow on top."

"Fucking stop drinking right now," Jet said and took away the half filled jug from under his friends nose. Droy wasn't protesting.

* * *

A/N: I have no idea how in the hell Droy decided that becoming a crazy gajevy shipper is a good idea, but that's my world now. The headcanon too strong, it's not going to go away. I'm probably going to explore the idea further... somewhere.


	3. Children Of The Wildeness

**"Children Of the Wildness"**

When Levy told him that they had a job that included lots and lots of walking and sleeping on the ground, Jet merely shrugged and grabbed his bag. He was used to that sort of thing. One could say, that it was Team Shadow Gear specialty. Though strolling through wildness, far away from cities was only a part of their usual jobs.

It all started with that one old guy, who was either a writer or a researching old times, because some people liked to study those things. The guy spilled his tea - at least that was what he told them - over his notes. Since he was too old, and a little bit ashamed over creating this whole mess, he decided to hire a young Script Mage to re-do the whole thing for him. For Jet and Droy it was pretty much a long trip far from the civilization and then long hours of watching Levy doing her thing and running frantically from one pile of rocks to another.

The old guy ended up very happy with their results and because of that, they got another job opportunity, this time requested by one of his friends. Then another one and another. Team Shadow Gear ended up with a pretty damn good reputation among the odd old folks.

Gajeel was a surprisingly good addiction to the group and not only because he was followed by the most level headed person ever. While he wasn't the most well-read person around, he wasn't just a muscle and just the survival person; Gajeel had a thing for knowing stuff, overhearing little bits and putting them all together and that made the jobs much, much easier. And less surprising, when something big and scary jumped out of the bushes, because they waltzed into its territory.

And he cooked. Which pretty much made suffering through his gruff personality absolutely worth it.

xxx

Several days of nothing interesting passed and they were somewhere on the map that nobody bothered much about - no cities or even little villages around. There were just trees around and when they were not, all they could see was ridiculously high grass, or little stinky ponds, or other stuff of that sort.

"Why all of those things are always so far away?" Droy whined.

"You're the plant guy, you should be happy," Jet grunted.

"Well, I'm not. A few days away from the civilization are fine, but this? What ever happened? Did cities walked away, or something?"

"Well," Levy started slowly. "Ruins are ruins for a very specific reason. Something broke them."

"And people moved so far away just like that?"

"Well, I think dragons were what happened to them," she explained and then carefully eyed Gajeel.

Droy hummed. "It makes sense. Four hundred years is more than enough for the terrain to change to the point it's really hard to recognize there was something build around here..."

"With the dragons around I don't think they were living fancy," Gajeel stated.

"True," Jet said and shuddered, because the memories showered him and it wasn't very pleasant experience. Especially that one short moment among the piles of rubble that smelled like ashes and despair that didn't even really happened, because Droy was walking right next to him, talking and alive. "People spend so much time building just a single building and then all went to shit in like ten minutes."

Sure, there were some ancient cities that somehow managed to survive the dragons, but they were mostly on the other side of the mountains that were towering far to their left. This part of the Fiore, it was pretty much burned to the ground and only recently people started to build new villages and towns along the roads leading east, towards Seven.

It wasn't the kindest of places either; somehow the wind always appeared much colder here and even in the middle of the summer they could still spot the white spots of snow hidden here and there in the thick and unwelcoming wildness.

The forest, just by the track they were following, was an odd mix of trees bended in weird ways and big bushes with crooked branches creating natural, thorny snares. Honestly, it almost looked like somebody chopped the forest in half, just to squeeze the road between the trees.

"Damn, this place is unpleasant," Jet grunted, wrapping his coat tighter around his body. The wind, along with the everlasting darkness caused by the thick foliage wasn't making the weather any better and the day itself was quite gloomy. "Why there's a road here in the first place?"

"Be glad," Droy grunted. "Just imagine walking around here without the road!"

"You're the plant guy, you should feel right at home here!"

"There's a road here, because Fiore needs the trade with Seven," Gajeel explained, probably in hopes to cut the end to the argument before it went too far. Or, more likely, because the noise was annoying him. "The only other way is through Bosco and they know it."

"You're right," Levy nodded enthusiastically. "They're calling for quite the money for just passing their borders with any sort of merchandise."

"Why can't we transport our stuff through the sea?" Jet asked. "I mean, not the Calm Sea, since this is like all Bosco on the other side, but the Whirpool Sea?"

"It's really damn misty all the time and there's a lot of shit underwater," Gajeel answered with a shrug. "And there's Isenberg."

"What about it?"

"Nothing much," the Dragon Slayer snickered. "Just the whole northern tribes are pretty much pirates."

"How does that even work?"

"Dunno. But they are living either on the sea, on ice or on the marsh that's the rest of their land and seems to be perfectly happy with themselves."

"You seem to know a lot about other countries," Levy noted, looking at the man with curiosity clearly visible in her eyes.

"I was travelling a lot before I joined a guild," he said. The smirk left his face, leaving it blank and emotionless.

"Oh," Levy said. There wasn't much more to add. There was also much more context in the things that Gajeel left unsaid – they all could guess pretty well why he was well travelled before he finally settled in a mage guild and they all knew as well what the name of said guild was.

"Can you tell us more about Isenberg then?" Levy proposed. "I've known about the tribes, but the piracy thing is quite new to me…"

She didn't receive her answer.

Gajeel stopped dead in his track with no explanation whatsoever. He stood there for a short moment, his brow furrowed, eyes focused on the ground in front of him, as if he decided to count all the grass straws in this particular spot.

Then he cursed loudly, took a sudden turn to the side and walked away from the group, quickly disappearing behind the thick foliage.

"Um, what the hell?" Droy asked, staring at the direction Gajeel wandered off. "This is not the right way, is it?"

"It's not," Levy said with a nod. She wrapped hands around herself as if she was cold.

Only she wasn't and they both clearly knew it. She was worried and probably would not move from her current spot until Gajeel returns.

Jet dropped his bag on the ground and found himself a nice tree – one without thorns and actually shielding him from the wind - to sit under. If they were going to stick around, he could at least be somewhat comfortable. Droy soon followed and then they both tried very hard to not feel awkward. It was a difficult feat, because with those two dancing around each other like that, they felt like they should walk away and give them space, or just plain out of their place. Which was ridiculous, since they were team, so their spots were right next to those stubborn dolts.

Jet sighed.

When Levy was about to switch from standing frozen in one place to walking in circles, the little stick on the ground cracked, the leaves made a surprising amount of noise and then Gajeel was back. Which was quite weird, because the guy usually moved like a freaking ninja, all soundless and unexpected.  
A second later Jet noticed that the messy entrance wasn't the only strange thing about Gajeel. There was the fact that he was all of sudden shirtless. well, not exactly shirtless to tell the truth. The shirt was simply not on his torso anymore. Instead, it was wrapped around something Gajeel was carrying.

Then that something started wailing in one of a kind, impossible to mistake with anything else, way.

"Holy...!" Jet gasped.

"You're not supposed to pick that in the forest!" Droy screeched, gesturing widely at the man. "You are supposed to pick mushrooms! And berries! and, and-!"

"Man, chill," Jet put hand on his friend shoulder, but he wasn't feeling too chill himself about the whole situation. it was just so surreal. Too crazy to be really happening.

"But it's not even a cat!" Droy protested.

Levy was the one person in the entire group who didn't seem like she was bordering with the state of pure panic. She put her hand on Gajeels elbow and somehow this little gesture made the huge Dragon Slayer to carefully lower himself and sit down on the ground. Levy followed, her fingers not leaving his arm for even shortest moment.

Droy opened his mouth, but Jet smacked him over the head before he managed to say something stupid. Or anything at all.

Jet himself had no idea whatsoever how to deal with this situation or what to say to not make everything worse, but he had no doubt that Droy would drop something that would just turn the crazy situation over its head. It was a shame that Pantherlily wasn't with them, currently occupied by training trip with Wendy. Nobody could say no to that face and besides, no one would be able to predict this situation either.

At least Levy seemed like she knew exactly what she was doing. So Jet just let her deal with the problem and Droy got the clue and kept his mouth shut.

Levy's hand slowly moved up Gajeels arm and then travelled back down just to climb up again. Each time her fingers reached further and further. Finally, she reached his hair.

Gajeel just tilted his head towards her. His expression was odd, like his mind and soul were somewhere far away, looking at entirely different place than his body was facing.

The little bundle of terror went silent at some point - Jet wasn't sure when exactly, because he was too concentrated on observing Levy, who was still petting the Dragon Slayer.  
In any different circumstances it would be a really, really intimate situation. Something no one was supposed to see. Now, however... now it was just weird and there was context to it too, so much of it and it all was like guessing, because Gajeel never talked about his past, period.

"Gajeel?" she asked in a soft voice.

He made a humm in response.

"Gajeel, I need you to give me something verbal," Levy reminded him. She brushed his hair aside, behind his ear. "So talk to me, please."

He was silent for some time, but finally, he opened his mouth.

"I don't know."

"We can figure it out," Levy said.

"Sure," he muttered.

xxx

It was the first time Team Shadow Gear decided to drop the mission. Usually they at least tried to nib on it before admitting that they went over their heads - and it wasn't like they were picking difficult or tasking things on purpose, like Team Natsu usually was.

However usually they weren't randomly finding babies in the middle of nowhere.

Old ruins definitely weren't baby-proof, they barely were able to put together a few meals for the kid. And gods only knew when was the last time the baby actually ate. So yes, they were forced to return. In haste.

The baby itself decided that being glued to Gajeel all the time was the greatest idea in the word. Gajeel didn't seem to mind. He just pulled out another shirt of out this bag, while the baby-occupied one became a variation of a blanket and a baby carrier.

Levy was also rarely leaving his side and Gajeel was fine with that too. Or because of that. Whatever was going on in his head, Levy was probably the sole thing anchoring him to the reality. The déjà vu hit him hard and then his memories weren't making it any better.  
Jet might've been guessing there, but if someone was raised by a dragon, then there was clearly a reason why a giant beast was doing the parenting in the first place. It wasn't a pretty one. He didn't know what the circumstances looked like in Gajeels case but this little brat, cradles safely in the muscular arms of the Dragon Slayer, had a nasty tale to tell. People were not leaving babies in the middle of nowhere in hopes that someone would pick them up.

"We're now pretty close to home," Droy said with a pleased sigh. "Finally."

Jet shared the sentiment. He was the speed-based mage, but even for him, the pace of the travel was quite taxing.

"You two go forward," Levy gave them a tight smile. "We're going to Porlyusica..."

"Okay," Jet nodded, before she even finished the sentence. "It's fine."

"Good."

"Droy, can you like take the request back to the guild?"

"Uh, sure." He blinked. "Why?"

"I think I'm going to do some rounds around the city," Jet said. "I'm fast enough to get the shopping done before everything will be closed."

They probably could improvise for another day or two, but why improvising if there was a way to get most of the necessities ready?

"Oh," Droy blinked. "Okay. I'll pick up dinner for all of us?"

"Great idea," Levy's smile warmed up several degrees. "Thank you."

"We're team," they answered with a shrug.

Well that and the fact they all went completely out of shirts during the mission, using every possible scrap of soft fabric as emergency nappies. Jet really wanted to keep the rest of his clothes intact.

Speeding through the city, doing baby-related shopping definitely was going to produce a crazy amount of ridiculous gossip. Especially since he paid a quick visit to the local merchant guild, to withdraw some of Gajeels money. The Dragon Slayer was too lazy to actually carry all the money from the mission, so he was instead using merchant guilds to take care of it for him. As the result, he was the only one from the Tenrou Island who had no financial problems after his return, through his finances were spread all over Fiore. And for some reason, he was letting the entire team withdraw all the money they wanted, which was the weirdest discovery ever. Well, maybe safe for the fact that Gajeel actually enjoyed sewing.

Jet was seriously out of breath when he kicked the doors of Gajeels house open.

Lily welcomed him with a frown.

"You could've just knock."

"With what?" Jet grunted, setting the bags on the floor, together with a collection of wooden boards in different shapes and sizes that were supposed to create a crib after being put together.

The Exceed just rolled his eyes and continued his own task. which, apparently, was cleaning the house. Not there was much to clean. Pantherlily happened to be a neat-freak and Gajeel wasn't making much of a mess either.

"Right," Lily sighed. "Need a help with that?"

"Sure," Jet nodded. "I have no clue how to put together stuff like that." Any form of a puzzle and he was completely, utterly lost.

Pantherlily nodded and picked up the wooden pieces. "I've cleaned up the guest room next to Gajeels," he explained.

"The kid is going to stay, right?" Jet asked, rearranging the stuff in the bags. A bunch of items needed to be brought to the kitchen, some of them should go to the bathroom, the rest - to the newly created nursery.

"Can you imagine it be any other way around?"

Jet couldn't. He honestly tried, because finding a good home for a baby would be a right thing to do and the logical one, but they were talking Gajeel here. The Dragon Slayer was glued to the kid since the very first moment he saw it and Jet highly doubted that the man would let go of it any time soon.

"I just hope he won't-" Jet started, but then stopped, because he couldn't find the subtle way to talk about Gajeels abandonment issues.

"He won't," Pantherlily said, absolutely certain. "Levy's with him."

If Gajeel was glued to the kid, then Levy definitely became almost inseparable from the Dragon Slayer, her fingers constantly giving reassuring touches, brushing his hair aside and doing all sorts of the things that somehow worked and kept Gajeel relatively calm.

"The one of the many good things that happened," Droy joined the conversation, walking through the doors.

"Since you two are gossiping I can assume that they are still out?"

"Not gossiping," Jet said, rolling his eyes. "But yes. They still haven't returned."

"Oh good," Droy smiled. "If I knew that all we had to do was to throw a baby at them...!"

Both Jet and Pantherlily groaned.

"Stop making disapproving noises, you guys know that I'm right!"

* * *

A/N: I think it went the slightly darker route that I expected. I just wanted Gajeel and Levy to not talk about being together or admit that they want to be together, but to just be together when it is needed.

Also, I dropped headcanons about the world here and there, because I find that sort of stuff interesting. And I really like writing Droy.


	4. Song

**"Song"**

Sometimes they got the weirdest filler missions and this one was no different. They just needed something short to fit in between some more serious stuff. Or at least things that were taking more time than just few hours in the evening.

Jet had no idea what sort of a person felt the need to hire someone to show up as an audience, but his job wasn't judging people. It was just sitting through whatever the play was and fake mild interest.

Actually, he expected to see something much, much worse, considering the character of the request, but the show was half-way decent. Though Jet had no idea what in the world was going on the stage, since the actors were singing about doing stuff instead of actually doing that stuff and it was all very confusing. There was being in love at the first sight thing, then not being able to love each other for some reason he couldn't quite comprehend and then it just went places he couldn't follow. The music was quite nice, though, especially the female lead. She had strong, low voice, a very pleasant to listen to. Which probably was the point

The place was one of the fancy ones, with dress code and waiters walking around with food on tiny sticks and the team probably wasted more time on getting ready than they would spend inside. Finding something for Droy was quite the challenge, as was talking Gajeel into putting on something that had no feathers on the ragged sleeves.

Not that Jet blamed him, he himself felt kind off in elegant clothes. They were too stiff and the tie was making him feel like he was choking and he honestly needed a distraction.

Jet looked to the side. Droy discretely was trying to trail the polypody that hanged over their table to steal him threats from plates when the waiters were passing by. The plant was definitely eager to do something, but the long, delicate leaves were not very good at grabbing.

On Jets other side, Levy was hastily making notes, her eyes dancing between the stage and the pages she was filling with long rows of letters.

Jet swallowed a groan. So, she decided to be helpful. Some people didn't like helpful, or hired help to do more than it was hired for. Levy however was Levy and she appeared to be unable to just sit and do nothing if it looked like she could use her knowledge to help someone. All was left for him was to pray that whoever wrote the thing was capable of not getting pissed off at her.

Behind Levy Jet could see the Dragon Slayer. Gajeel was shamelessly resting his head over the wooden surface of the table.

Well, Jet sighed, figures. Figures the guy who spend most of the time sleeping would do exactly that.

Levy was too occupied with making notes and paying attention to the actress singing about something or the other to actually notice that Gajeel was not doing his job and Jet wasn't feeling particularly suicidal either. Waking the Dragon Slayer usually meant taking a punch to the face. However failing a job that was just sitting there for few hours would be plain ridiculous and Jet didn't want his team to turn into a walking joke for the rest of the guild.

Just as he was about to literally poke the sleeping dragon, Jet noticed that Gajeel never closed his eyes in the first place. It was hard to notice, because he was staring at the scene from under his eyelashes, but he was definitely paying attention.

Why in the world he was faking being asleep, was beyond Jet, but further observation made the whole thing even more ridiculous - the Dragon Slayer was barely blinking.

Jet looked back at Levy. The girl was still furiously making notes, her cheeks slightly blushed, eyes sparkling with excitement. Well, she was either making notes or writing the thing down for some odd reason. Meanwhile, Gajeel still was barely blinking. Considering how good his memory was when he actually was paying attention to things, he would probably be able to recite the whole thing, or do something equally weird.

This was official, Jet though, waving away the leaf that was trying to steal his hair band. His team was just plain ridiculous.

xxx

The sun was about to start setting, but all the work at the campsite was pretty much done. Droy was finishing setting up the tents for the night, while Pantherlily headed out to collect more wood for the fire. They were going to need it, the promise of pretty damn cool night hanged in the air. There was that characteristic, salty smell and the sky was brilliantly clear. It almost hurt to look up for too long, because the colors were so intense.

Jet with a small sight returned to his own task: he had drawn the short straw for today and ended up with cleaning up shoes. That wasn't fun, that was boring. And repetitive, and he was pretty damn sure that the rest of the team somehow managed to rigg the whole thing, because Jet was always the one ending up scratching the dirt off the soles. He also somewhat hated Gajeel, because his boots were ridiculous.

The Iron Dragon Slayer was obviously not even taking the part in the whole lottery thing. Not because he terrorized them into excluding him from the whole mess, but because he was the best cook. He also appeared to like making food and they were not risking food poisoning, so it was like a win-win situation for everyone.

Like right now - whatever was going on in that pot, it definitely smelled really tasty. Gajeel was sitting by the fire, slowly adding ingredients to the stew. He had his hairs in a loose bun, which alone was pretty amusing. That wasn't everything. He was humming. Actually humming and Jet doubted that Gajeel was even aware of making any sort of noise.

The song was easy to recognize - it was that ballad from the few days ago, where he was trying so very hard to act like he slept through the whole thing.

Jet wanted to snicker, because being betrayed by your own subconscious like that... it was funny. Only he didn't, because little moments like that were too precious to risk not letting them play out till the very end.

Instead, he eyed Levy, curious if their female companion noticed what the Dragon Slayer was doing.

Levy, as always, was the planner of the mission - while Gajeel happened to know a lot of placed for reasons he refused to explain, Levy was the one able to connect all the dots and create a path that actually made sense. Though she was also quite obsessive over the whole thing; like wasting an additional day on wandering around would be a tragedy. Even now she was having her nose buried in papers and notes.

Just when he started considering poking her over the shoulder, so she would catch the show when it was going on, Jet noticed something. Or rather, his ears finally registered the fact, that she was humming too. It wasn't just any song, either.

It was exactly the same one.

Jet slowly put the shoe he was holding down, very slowly and carefully, to not the startle the pair and just observed, mesmerized. They weren't just making sounds. They weren't simply humming the same song – that sweet, sweet love song from the very beginning of the show from the other day - together either. They were humming together.

Levy was doing the part of the female lead, while Gajeel was following with the sounds of the parts that belonged to the male actor. They were obviously unaware of the whole thing happening in the first place. For such brave people, they were hilariously shy around each other. A bold move as singing a love ballad together would never come to life…  
But it did, because they were occupied with their own tasks around the camp and they were simply not paying attention to what was going on around them.

For people who were currently not paying attention, they somehow managed to sound just right. The melody didn't appear to be off and Gajeels low hums made a perfect background for Levy's higher voice, contrasting and adding the much needed depth.

Droy, either finished with the tents or just decided to stop doing his job, was looking at him with his brow furrowed.

"Magic is happening," he mouthed at Droy, while gesturing towards the pair.

Jet gestured towards the pair, trying to be as subtle as possible. He moved his hands much, much slowed that usual, afraid that a fast movement would be caught in the corner of the dragons eye and everything would go to hell because of that.

Droy blinked, then his eyes followed the gestures.

He stared for a short moment, before he finally saw it. Mouthing a soundless "woah", Droy slowly sat down, using the surface of the tent as a cover, probably in hopes that his staring would be less obvious. His head sticking out like that made him look like a creep instead, but Jet decided he's going to talk about that much, much later.

Sadly, the moment was broken much before its time.

Both Gajeel and Levy jumped, when the bushes nearby suddenly rustled loudly. They both also finally realized that they were making noises – though it was a mystery if they also managed to notice that they were making noises together - considering the beet red blushes that crept up their cheeks.

Pantherlily walked from between the foliage in all the might of his huge battle form, carrying big chunks of firewood in his muscular arms.

He opened mouth, clearly about to announce his return. Then Pantherlily noticed that the attention of the entire group was already on him, so there was no reason for him to say anything. Then he noticed Gajeel and Levy acting off.

"What's up with you two?" he asked, dropping the wood close to the bonfire.

Levy made a small squealing noise and covered her face. Gajeel only humpfed at his cat - which meant that he was really angry at being caught off guard - and continued chopping vegetables for the stew.

The silence was quite deafening.

"Great job, cat," Droy grumped. "You broke it."

* * *

A/N: I'm going to update the rest of the prompts, it just might take awhile. Sometimes I'm just too tired to write.  
Also, this series somehow turned into bunch of headcanons about Team Shadow Gear inner workings. I'm fine with that, Jet and Droy are important parts of Levy's life and she sure as hell is not going to dump them just because she found herself a better male model. Quite the opposite, they're part of the package.


End file.
